The Hamas landslide

Hamas’ landslide win at the Palestinian elections on 25 January has been greeted with indignant warnings and commentaries from the United States and the European Union, including France. We need to put this event in context.

Though the election was held under foreign occupation, more than three-quarters of registered voters cast their vote. It was a victory for democracy and proof that Palestinians care about it. Some 900 international observers reported the election to have been free and fair.

Voters expressed their rejection of the policies of the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Fatah on at least two levels. They condemned their inability to create sound institutions, eliminate corruption or improve daily life. Everyone in Palestine is aware of the permanent constraints of an occupation that has been in place for nearly 40 years but, even taking that into account, the PA’s record is poor. It is equally poor in regard to negotiations with Israel since the 1993 Oslo accords.

Mahmoud Abbas’ whole gamble since he was elected president in January 2005 was that a moderate position would kickstart the peace process. That didn’t happen. Ariel Sharon, having said for so long that Yasser Arafat was an obstacle to peace, offered nothing to his successor. With the unilateral withdrawal from Gaza came further expansion of settlements and faster building of the separation wall, regardless of condemnation by the international court at The Hague. That was the whole point of the withdrawal. The checkpoints and restrictions have continued to make daily life impossible for Palestinians, the number of political prisoners increased to several thousand and so on.

It is therefore strange to hear US and European leaders pondering how to “continue the peace process”. But no process existed before the elections: it had stopped with Sharon’s election.

The Palestinians voted for Hamas not because they supported its founding programme pledged to destroy Israel, nor because they wanted to see a resumption of suicide attacks (on the contrary, recent opinion polls show they want peace and negotiation), but because they wanted to end disastrous PA rule. It is to be hoped that the cataclysm of 25 January will compel the Palestinian body politic to renew itself and devise a more effective strategy towards the occupation.

Hamas is, without doubt, popular in both the West Bank and Gaza. It is part of the political landscape. As in many Arab countries, it is illusory to think that progress to democracy can be made without including the Islamists. For the Palestinian population, Hamas has three major assets: it actively resists the occupation, it has a big social welfare network and it commands the loyalty of its cadres. Exercising power will, however, be a severe challenge. Hamas is to the right economically, favourable to free market policies; socially it is extremely conservative, a cause for concern, especially to a large number of women.

Hamas is also pragmatic: it refused to take part in the 1996 elections, arguing that they were held in the framework of the Oslo accords; it has since modified its position although the situation has not changed. It has also forged alliances with highly respected local figures, welcomed Christians to its ranks and shown its competence in running the municipalities in which it had been elected.

We do not know what will happen in the coming months. However, if the European countries have a role to play, it is to recall that any solution to the Middle East conflict must be based on United Nations resolutions: complete evacuation of all the territories occupied in 1967, including East Jerusalem, the creation of an independent Palestinian state, and Israel’s right to peace and security. They must require Hamas to recognise Israel in accordance with international law, but at the same time reiterate that the present stalemate comes from Israel’s own persistent refusal to put UN resolutions into practice.

Alain Gresh

Alain Gresh is editor of Le Monde diplomatique and a specialist on the Middle East.
He was born in Cairo in 1948 and moved to Paris in his teens where he completed his education (Master’s in mathematics at the Université Paris VII in 1971, Diploma of Arabic at the Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales in 1977, and a PhD on the Palestine Liberation Organisation at the Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales in 1983).
He is a member of the administrative council of the Institute of Arab World (IMA) and president of the Association of French journalists specialised on the Maghreb and the Middle East (AJMO).
His books include The PLO, The Struggle Within (Zed Books, London, 1986), Un péril islamiste? (Complexe, Bruxelles, 1994), Israël-Palestine, vérités sur un conflit (Fayard, Paris, 2001). He co-authored, with Dominique Vidal, An A to Z to the Middle East (Zed, 1990, and I B Tauris, 2004); Palestine 1947, un partage avorté (Complexe, Bruxelles, 1987); and Golfe: Clefs pour une guerre annoncée (Le Monde éditions, Paris, 1990). He co-authered, with Didier Billion, Actualités de l’Etat palestinien (Complexe, Bruxelles, 2000) and, with Françoise Germain-Robin et Tariq Ramadan, L’Islam en questions (Actes-Sud/Sindbad, 2000).
His book Israël-Palestine, vérités sur un conflit (Fayard, 2001 et 2002) has been translated into German, Arabic, Dutch, Italian, Spanish and Portugese. His most recent book L’Islam, la république et le monde will be published by Fayard in September 2004.
His articles include “Turkish-Israeli-Syrian Relations and their impact on the Middle East”, Middle East Journal, spring 1998, “Russia’s Return to the Middle East”, Journal of Palestine Studies, autumn 1998, and numerous articles in Le Monde diplomatique.